


dwarf on the doorstep and something like anger in the air

by celebreultimaverba, Royalwriter



Series: rebellion or revolution: whichever comes first [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Non-Graphic Violence, vague references to larger-universe lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 03:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16526807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebreultimaverba/pseuds/celebreultimaverba, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Royalwriter/pseuds/Royalwriter
Summary: She's not dead yet, Clay knows that almost immediately. It does beg the question, of course, how shegotthere. This dwarf died four and a half weeks ago, ripped apart by goblins in the latest Hunger Games. There weren't meant to be any survivors. Perhaps, then, she will appreciate tea when she wakes up. He's sure being dead weighs on someone.The first in a connected series of one-shots in the M9 Hunger Games AU.





	dwarf on the doorstep and something like anger in the air

District 11 was almost certainly the most beautiful place in all of Panem. Caduceus has always thought so, looking down on the miles and miles of orchards that his graveyard oversees. He’s here alone, this year. It’s just him and the Wildmother, no more burials to go through today in particular. It’s not that time of year.

Eventually, the seasons will change, and people will start submitting to the burning cold when they aren’t able to pay for the wood or coal or blankets to keep themselves warm through the night. Come winter, Clay will have a small procession of people coming through and needing buried. Even more of a procession coming through and doing the burying.

Of course, he may not be here, still. It’s a very small chance, but his family’s luck has been very bad. Unusually bad, some might comment, but Clay knows better than that.

The Wildmother wouldn’t allow them to be harmed, not intentionally at least. If it was something systematic he’s sure she would have intervened. No, this must be sheer chance, something that even the Wildmother wouldn’t interfere with. He’s sure that the luck will turn this year. He’s certain of it.

He’d just finished interring the body of a woman he doesn’t know. Nasty business—she was just one of many who cross his path that decide that death was best to come to them by their own hands, rather than the hands of Peacekeepers. Clay isn’t the best with numbers, but he knows that their family keeps the statistics of deaths, along with a few other graveyards in District 11, to send to the Capitol every year. This woman, the person who brought her in said her name was Ursula—was only one of many, though luckily, not as many this season. Clay always finds it a bit sad when he takes care of suicides. When death is natural, he can at least take solace in the fact that the Wildmother claimed them as peacefully as possible. Suicide has such violence behind it.

He quietly shoos away those unpleasant thoughts from his mind, preferring instead to focus on making that day’s tea. He’s trying a new brew, hoping that some of the flowers growing over the rough stone of the Callahan family gravestone will prove to be viable. Most of them are, in some way or another, but “safe to drink” and “pleasant to drink” are two separate categories when trying new tea leaves.

Of course, he’s about halfway through that brew when there’s a knock on his door.

It’s too bad, truly. He was hoping that there wouldn’t be any more need for burials today. He knows that death waits for no one, but it’s much better when there’s less of them. Better for the plants too. They like decomposing, but too many corpses and their jobs get difficult. Clay likes to keep their jobs from being difficult.

The day gets more complicated when he opens the door. He lifts the body, heavier than it looks, though for a dwarf that makes sense, and there’s a quiet huff of air that leaves it. This one may still be alive.

Caduceus doesn’t make that call right away. He takes his time, laying her out on a table and examining her. No, there’s a pulse for certain. It’s faint, but present.

The Wildmother hasn’t taken this one yet. She sent her to Clay, and he’s going to do his best to make sure that she doesn’t leave before it’s her time.

He covers her in blankets to try to raise her core temperature, before putting some water on to boil. It’s odd, Clay reflects as he looks at the dwarf on his table, she certainly resembles someone who he knows is dead. 

Not a close personal friend certainly, nothing as dramatic as that. Just a dwarf who’d died in the Games the year before, the same year his last sister did. He thinks she might even have taken his sister. No sense to worrying about that, though.

Except the familiarity keeps nagging at him as he treats her wounds. At first glance it’d been dismissable, but as he wraps bandages around sores on the body, he grows more certain of it. This is the same dwarf who died in the latest Games, though much skinnier and in much worse shape.

She’s not risen from the dead though. He’s only seen that one time, and that reeked far more heavily of Capitol interference than this. Clay could tell from several yards away that the Wildmother had been denied, blood forced back to flowing underneath purple skin. No, this seems closer to a mistake. Someone took this dwarf for dead, and they were wrong. That’s understandable. Everyone makes mistakes.

Clay gets her warm before he starts on his tea. He wishes he could do more, but there’s no Capitol medicine available to them that can cure abuses of the body. There’s no herbs he can give either until she’s at least awake. For now, Clay can sit and sip his tea and hope that the Wildmother doesn’t want this one quite yet.

He thinks this might be interesting.

* * *

When the dwarf wakes up she makes an awful racket about it. Clay’s sipping tea in the other room and he hears her from there, a sudden clatter as she forces herself out of the blankets.

“Where the fuck am I? Where are you bastards?” Clay heads into the room with the mug of tea in hand.

“Please lay back down. You’re going to hurt yourself worse than the elements already have, and they’ve done a pretty fine job of it.”

The dwarf furrows her brow at him, “You’re not Capitol, are you?”

“No, we’re a long way from there.”

“How did I get here? Who are you?”

“My name’s Caduceus Clay, and this is my graveyard. Someone left you just outside my doorstep this morning, I didn’t get there quite quick enough to catch their appearance, I’m sorry about that. Would you like some tea?”

“No— How do I know you’re not lying to me?” She’s still sitting up, and shaking, which makes Clay frown. It’d be much easier if she would lay still.

“I suppose you don’t, but from what I’ve gathered you’re supposed to be dead. Not to mention that I’ve been losing plenty of siblings to bad luck myself. I don’t think they do that with Capitol folks much.”

He hasn’t remembered the dwarf’s name in the hours she’s been unconscious, but he has remembered what he should be doing with her, once she’s out of the woods with death. It’s only happened once before, his parents took in a half-dead half-elf that had died in the Games, and under cover of night had ushered them into the catacombs under their graveyard, never to return.

It sounds ominous, now that Clay thinks about it, but he knows where the catacombs lead. The half-elf will certainly be safer in 13.

He sets his mug down and sets a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t slap him away, so he risks coaxing her back into lying down. She goes, a bit unwillingly, but seems to understand that it’s the best thing she can do for herself at the moment.

“There you are. Why don’t you tell me your name? I can’t seem to remember it, from when you were in the arena.”

She hesitates, looking him up and down. He gives her the most calming smile he can manage, and she seems to believe it. “I’m Keg.”

He nods, remembering now. Yes, Keg was the female tribute from District 2 last Games. She died four weeks ago. “It’s nice to meet you, Keg.”

“Yeah, yeah. Where are we? If this isn’t the Capitol—” her eyes widen, and she sits up again, much too fast. Clay winces in sympathy when she does. “Ow. I was in the arena. What happened to— who won the Games?”

“You’re asking about your companion?” he asks. He thinks he remembers that Keg was with someone, when his sister was killed. “She won the Games.”

“But I’m still alive,” Keg argues.

Clay nods. “You are. You were ripped apart by goblin muttations, if I remember correctly.”

Keg frowns. “Yeah, I remember that. I think— maybe, I think one of them might have helped me? I was pretty out of it by then, though.”

Clay nods. “Weird things happen sometimes. Either way, someone was mistaken in thinking you were dead.”

“You didn’t bring me back, right?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t have the technology to do that. If I were to bring you back, you would have to have died here on this table. And even then, I may not be able to help.”

She just stares at him for a second. He gives her a smile.

“Right.” Another pause. “Why the fuck did they save me?”

“That I don’t have the means to know. Again, no note or anything was left with you. I’m sure it’s safer that way. I’d imagine, though, that you said some things other people liked, promoted some agenda, probably one against the Capitol. It’s out of the ordinary, but not unheard of.”

Keg’s calm fades, and her eyes widen. “But there’s nowhere I can go, now. You said we were in 11? The Capitol will find me anywhere. I might as well have died there.” She’s starting to sit up again, but when Clay holds his hands up, she follows his silent direction without his touch being necessary.

“There are ways, but for now you must rest. I will get you out of the grasp of the Capitol, safely. That I can promise you. It will require much travel though, and you do not have a great deal of time before you have to leave here. The more you can rest now, the better off you will be.” Clay reaches and adjusts the blankets so that they cover Keg.

“Wait, fuck, are you saying there’s something outside the Capitol? There’s somewhere else I can go?”

“Yes, but please, you’re going to wear yourself far too thin worrying about such things now. Rest, for both our sakes.”

Keg starts to respond, but closes her mouth to nod.

Clay worries that he has overwhelmed her with new information, too much at once. The trouble with situations that progress in this manner is the balancing of details. They need to know enough to trust him, enough that their heart rates don’t rise in ignorant panic and cause havoc. But given too much information, and the same situation can occur for the opposite reason. The chemistry of bodies is difficult to manage. Caduceus is much better with the plants.

The plants are easy. Sunlight, soil, water, or lack thereof, and they thrive. People are much harder, and he imagines this dwarf might be even harder than most. He stokes the fire so it grows hotter, and feels eyes on the back of his neck. He does not acknowledge them. If she wishes to pretend to sleep while watching he can allow that.

He does however, need to prepare her food for the journey. He does not know how far the catacombs spiral, but he remembers the packing. Many bags of all they could spare, and even then it would be a close thing. Clay does hope she makes it.

* * *

It’s a little later, but nearly enough for her to be fully rested that Clay hears a call from the other room. He’s been packing soup made from the broth of mushrooms and other spices he’s grown into a container that should keep them warm for travel. Cold stew will keep one fed, but it does not warm the heart.

“You said your name was Caduceus Clay?” Keg’s voice is too weak to be yelling, so Clay stops what he was doing and crosses into the other room.

“I did. And you’re Keg.” He’s not sure why they’re rehashing names at this moment, but he suspects she might have other motivations behind bringing it up.

“Your siblings, you said they’ve been drawn for the past couple of years for the games? Often?” 

“Every year as of late, yes. The odds have certainly not been in our favor, but we’re firbolgs, and we’ve had quite a few years on some humans. Our names are in there many times for that reason, and they’ve been picked every time. I do worry that we have displeased the Wildmother in some way. I have been working hard to maintain this chapel in hopes of pleasing her.”

“Yeah it’s not the Wildmother.” Keg sits up _again_ but she is so vehement that Clay doesn’t move to stop her. “The Wildmother has absolutely no say in that shit, that’s the Capitol through and through.”

“I don’t follow.” Clay’s lying. He thinks he might, in fact, but he needs to hear it said. This is something of a revelation, if he is following correctly, so there’s no room to risk misinterpreting. 

“I am— was— a Career tribute. They give us information, when they have it, on the future tributes. Usually it’s just from the Career districts, who they expect to be volunteering, but sometimes it comes from other districts. Your family isn’t being randomly selected due to some unfortunate turn of fate or whatever bullshit they fed you. The Capitol is ensuring that they’re chosen. I don’t know what you guys did to piss them off, but man, did it work.” Keg’s angry, Clay can tell that much. He feels oddly removed from the situation.

He should be reacting more, probably. It’d been possible to accept the death of his siblings when it was a turn of chance. Once they were in the arena they wouldn’t find their way out. Perhaps, that was how death wanted them to be taken. He could accept that, could work around that even as it hurt him. But the Capitol choosing them meant something else entirely. That was going against the natural order, and Clay thinks he might be angry about it. 

Keg is still talking, even though he hadn’t said anything. “Clay, they’re going to draw you this year. They’re going to take you into the Games, and not to roast you or anything, but I doubt you’ll live through this. Come with me.”

Clay needs a minute. Well, he needs possibly more than a minute. First, he needs to finish packing the food for Keg’s trip, but after that he needs to come to a conclusion on what he’s going to do. The Wildmother has not let him make such a decision like this in a long while.

“Dude? Clay, are you okay? Your silence is real weird.” Keg is touching his arm now, and he starts.

“Yes. I apologize, that’s news to me. I will need a few minutes to process that, in the meantime you should keep resting. Even if I come it’ll be difficult.” Clay turns to leave the room, and Keg settles back down. He’s glad for it. He’s not sure he could bring himself to move her in the moment.

Clay goes back to his stew, but he can’t remember how much oregano goes into the stew. It’s upsetting, because it’s not something he needs to remember. It’s something that he knew off the top of his head, it’s as innate as his family. He’s realizing now that his understanding of his family is not as nuanced as he is.

He’d known logically that he would likely die in the Games. He’d accepted this, as long as it was what the fates foretold. There was randomness in the way names were chosen. It happened.

Except it wasn’t just happening. The Capitol had been killing his family. Perhaps this is what anger feels like.

It’s tightening his stomach into a knot. It’s eating away at him in a way that’s frightening, Clay has never felt this before. He puts the last of the food in a pack and makes a decision.

He’s going to District 13 with Keg. He’s going to find the people he knows must be associated with Keg’s appearance on his doorstep, and he is going to change things.


End file.
